


Electric Ghost Rhino

by Lavellington



Series: I Always End Up Where I Need to Be [1]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Co-dependence, Did I Mention Fluff, Followed by Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Pararibulitis (Dirk Gently), Sharing a Bed, disgusting mountains of fluff, emotionally repressed dorks, lowkey anxiety and depression, pre-slash kind of but can be read as platonic if that's your bag, very slight angsting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-23 00:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9630893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavellington/pseuds/Lavellington
Summary: Dirk and Todd are not co-dependent, exactly. They've just had a rough couple of weeks.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a thing. Not much happens in this thing. Set after what I assume will be a daring rescue of Dirk from the CIA. Rated teen for a couple of naughty words. Mentions of nightmares and possible trauma, but mostly this is insubstantial fluff. Unbetaed, so let me know if you spot any goofs.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Dirk," he says, into the darkness.
> 
> "Eep," Dirk says, in a much higher register than his usual.
> 
> Todd tries, and probably fails, to keep his smile out of his voice.
> 
> "What are you doing?"
> 
> "Nothing," Dirk whispers, even though Todd is clearly awake and speaking at a normal volume. "Go back to sleep."
> 
> Todd sighs and sits up.
> 
> "What did we say about you breaking into my apartment?"

Todd wakes up suddenly and completely to the sound of his apartment door opening and closing. It's quiet, but he's screwed over enough people and lived in enough crummy shared houses that he's perfected the skill of sleeping with one eye open. He lies in bed, listening, and thinking vaguely that he should really get his lock fixed.

He can't muster up a real sense of panic, because in this new and exciting era of his life, odds are the disturbance is either Dirk, or something Dirk-related. Granted, the second scenario could potentially be life-threatening, but as long as he sticks with Dirk, he has a habit of coming out of near-death experiences pretty much okay.

It's too dark to see much, but he hears the creak of a couch and then a sigh, and his shoulders relax.

"Dirk," he says, into the darkness.

"Eep," Dirk says, in a much higher register than his usual.

Todd tries, and probably fails, to keep his smile out of his voice.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Dirk whispers, even though Todd is clearly awake and speaking at a normal volume. "Go back to sleep."

Todd sighs and sits up.

"What did we say about you breaking into my apartment?"

"Well," Dirk says, because he never lets one go, _never_ , "technically I didn't need to break anything–"

"What's wrong?" Todd interrupts, before they can get too caught up in arguing semantics and boundary issues. "Couldn't sleep?"

"No," Dirk says, after a beat. "At least, not for very long in one stretch."

Todd, because he is himself, who is an asshat, does not tell Dirk at this point that he has been having a similar problem for the last two days, ever since they got back to the Ridgely after a week's absence that felt like a year. Since everyone had peeled off except the two of them, since Dirk had stumbled–uninvited–into Todd's apartment after him and–unasked–made him the worst bowl of soup he has ever had in his goddamn life. He doesn't tell Dirk that the best night's sleep he's had in recent memory was when the two of them had fallen asleep together on his couch, post-soup, and he had woken up with a crick in his neck and his head on Dirk's shoulder. He doesn't say out loud that if Dirk hadn't snuck into his apartment he probably would have been woken sooner or later anyway, by the memories of Amanda's screams, of Dirk crying and clenching his jaw against pain, of Friedkin's bloody hands.

He doesn't say any of that. Of fucking course. Instead he says, "So you decided to commandeer my couch?"

Dirk snuffles like a baby animal and says, "Sorry. I'll go."

"Get over here," Todd says, throwing back the covers. Dirk freezes halfway to the door. Todd sits there in silence and hopes that Dirk, for once, won't ask a million questions, that he'll take a leaf out of the Brotzman book of emotional repression and not examine _any_ of this too closely.

"You won't get any sleep if you go home, and you'll freeze on my couch," Todd says, reasonably, like he's doing Dirk a huge favor here, "so you might as well sleep here tonight. There's plenty of room, and I don't bite."

He can _hear_ Dirk hesitating, because he always decides to overthink things at the least convenient times.

"What if you have an attack?" he says, softly, and okay, _ouch_. Of all potential objections, he hadn't predicted that one.

"You're right," he says, letting the covers drop and lying back down. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't put you in that position."

" _No_ ," Dirk says, "no, no, no!"

He rushes over to the bed and sits on the edge of it, his hand flying out blindly and landing on Todd's chest, which he pats awkwardly. It's the most Dirk interaction possible, and something sharp-edged and bitter in Todd dissipates slightly.

"I didn't mean it like that," Dirk says, and although he's much closer, he's no longer whispering. He's actually kind of yelling. Distressed, apologetic yelling. Todd raises his eyebrows in the dark.

"What did you mean?"

"I just meant, you're a very private person. And you don't like people to see you. At those moments."

Todd sighs. He spends a lot of time as Dirk's friend _sighing_ , he's noticed.

"You're not people, Dirk."

Dirk snorts. "Well, I suppose I can't argue with that."

There's an incredibly awkward pause, during which Todd is content to lie and listen to the clicking and whirring of Dirk's brain, wondering what the outcome will be.

"So," Dirk says, "Is your offer still..."

"Oh my God, _yes_ ," Todd says, shoving him so he can lift up the covers again. "Get in and go to sleep already."

Dirk scrambles in like a little kid at a sleepover, and Todd wishes the lights were on so he could see whether Dirk actually wears footie pajamas.

"Thank you," Dirk whispers, after a few minutes of fidgeting and shuffling around.

Todd thinks about how many times he's seen Dirk cry in their short friendship, and how little he deserved any of it. He thinks about the fact that he spent two full days hanging out with Dirk in the middle of nowhere, sleeping in the jeep and sharing flasks of tea and telling dumb stories, and they somehow managed to not get sick of each other. He thinks about the fact that Dirk's quiet breathing nearby makes the darkness of his apartment seem calmer, less malevolent.

He says, "No problem."

*

Dirk wakes early in the morning, which is a new, post-capture (or post-recapture, he supposes) feature of his life that he could very much do without, thank you. Before all of this Blackwing business had been dragged up again, Dirk had been a highly proficient sleeper, conking out for entire mornings and surfacing around the same time the lunch rush started in the café below his flat. His preferred routine at this point had been to nip casually into the hallway, steal his neighbour's newspaper (the man worked nights, and never managed to solve the mystery of the Missing Papers himself, bless) and have his morning tea at a respectable twelve-thirty. He would usually do this by the window, laughing merrily at all the grumpy people in suits jostling in and out downstairs, attempting to distract themselves from the crushing boredom and enforced punctuality of their lives with takeaway coffee and sandwiches. This system worked perfectly well for him, and he was never late for anything, as he always showed up everywhere at the exact time he was meant to be there.

On this particular morning, he wakes up at _half-past six_ , and spends a full 60 seconds trying to work out where he is, and why he can't hear the noise of customers below him, or smell the baking bread. He turns his head to the left, squinting, and sees Todd asleep beside him. He watches him for a minute, allowing his memories to reassemble, and waiting for the inevitable sense of guilt and dread that has flared into life with his consciousness for the past two mornings. It is, while not entirely absent, somewhat muted, and he wonders if Todd's proximity is a factor. Perhaps the physical presence of someone trusted is the most effective relief for anxiety. He'll need to test this hypothesis, of course.

He glances at his watch and sighs. Sleep has fled, and really he might as well get up and have some of the tea that Amanda had bought for him before she left. He manages to extract himself gracefully from the bed–well, okay, maybe not entirely gracefully, maybe with some minimal falling on the floor with one foot stubbornly tangled in the duvet–without waking Todd, and begins his quest for caffeine.

He's stretching in the kitchen, waiting for the water to boil, when he notices Todd's guitar propped against the cupboards, looking worse for wear, and somehow quite sad. He rotates his sore shoulder and eyes it pensively. Todd had clearly been near breaking point himself when he had smashed it. He'd been cradling it like a newborn child only moments beforehand. In hindsight, he must be more upset about that than the furniture. He wonders how much it would cost to buy Todd a new one. He retrieves his phone from where he left it on the sofa last night, and does some quick googling, followed by some quick texting Amanda, because he doesn't trust himself to get the right one, even with the original literally right in front of him.

Well, that's something semi-useful he can do, at least.

When Todd wakes half an hour later, Dirk is on his second cup of tea, sitting cross-legged on Todd's shabby old sofa and reading a book about twentieth century urban architecture whose very existence in this flat he finds completely hilarious.

"Why on earth do you have this?" he asks, when Todd props himself up on one elbow to blink over at him. "I know for a fact you have literally no hobbies or interests that don't involve making music or mocking other people's music. I _know_ this, Todd."

Todd grins in that understated way Dirk can only seem to elicit by gently mocking him–he's been trying that a bit more lately. It's what friends do, he thinks, and he can't deny it's rather fun needling Todd, who vacillates between amused, grumpy, and surprised at Dirk's jokes, sometimes all in one conversation.

"My Aunt Esther gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago," he says, falling off his elbow and stretching from head to toe. Dirk looks away, but he hears a couple of joints crack. "She just bought it for me because it has a picture of my building in it. She thought it would be cool for me to know the history of where I live."

"When _is_ your birthday?" he asks, looking at a grainy picture of a Romanian church and shivering slightly.

"October 5th," Todd says. Then, more suspiciously, "Why?"

"That's soon. We should have a party."

Todd snorts, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

"Good idea," he says, "I'll be sure to invite all my family and friend."

"Does self-loathing _count_ as a hobby?" Dirk wonders aloud.

"God," Todd says, completely ignoring him, "Amanda would probably want to bring the Rowdy Three."

"Ugh," Dirk says, flipping the page to a glossy photograph of an Irish hotel.

"When's yours?" Todd says, after a moment.

Dirk slowly turns the page, internally berating himself for not seeing that one coming. Then he stops. Wait. That's...

"My building!" he yelps. Manfully.

Todd sits up and aggressively raises his eyebrows at him. "Dirk," he says, "we are having a conversation here, don't change the–"

"You don't understand," Dirk says, waving the book at him frantically, trying not to spill his tea, because he's excited, but he's not an _animal_.

"It's my building," he says again, and there's a warmth building inside him, a sense of rightness, a sense that maybe the universe, while rarely helping him in any real sense of the word, will occasionally throw him a wink. He looks up, and finds Todd's helpless smile mirroring his own.

"What," Todd says, already laughing, "the hell are you talking about?"

Dirk sets his tea down and bounds over to the bed, landing next to Todd with perhaps slightly more force than necessary.

"Oof," Todd says, as they knock shoulders.

"Sorry, sorry," Dirk says, "but _look_."

He shows Todd the picture of the squat, red brick building in South London, taken in the seventies, when the cafe below his old flat had been a record store and everything had looked significantly less grimy.

"This," he says, "is my old building. That–" he jabs his finger at the first floor window in the picture "–is my old flat. I lived in this building in London for _five years_ , Todd. And this," he turns the page with a flourish, "is the Ridgely. On the _next page_."

He's practically _vibrating_. This means...well, he's not sure, but it means something. He's sure of that.

Todd leans into his shoulder and laughs softly.

"Hey," he says, "how about that."

It's much warmer than it was yesterday, Dirk thinks dazedly, touching the photo of his old flat and leaning back into Todd as supporting his own weight grows too strenuous. Maybe he'll sleep better tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk and Todd buy a rice cooker. No, seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no inclination to write anything remotely plotty right now, so have some more domestic dorks. 
> 
> Also, I'm aware that I accidentally mentioned Todd watching tv, even though his own tv was thrown out of a window in episode 1, so cut me some slack and assume they brought one up from Dirk's mysteriously swanky flat downstairs.

Dirk orders the guitar a week later, figuring this will give him plenty of time to have it ready for Todd's birthday. He had initially been worried that Todd might buy one for himself in the interim, thus scuppering Dirk's thoughtful gesture, but Todd has spent most of the last week eating cereal and watching television, and seems somewhat lacking in motivation just now.

Dirk has never bought anyone a birthday present before, although he understands the general principle of the thing, and he's more worried about it than might be reasonable. In all things, Dirk relies on the universe to guide him, but he doesn't think that's a good policy this time. The universe, while so far doing a passable job at keeping him alive, rarely steers him right in interpersonal matters, as the many people who have slapped him in the face over the years would no doubt attest. He decides that discretion is the better part of valour in this case, and discreetly allows Amanda to pick one out for him.

He's not even certain that his buying Todd a guitar counts as a present, per se. After all, it was _sort of_ , from a certain angle, maybe _technically_ Dirk's fault that Todd's former guitar had been smashed in the first place. True, Todd had done the actual smashing, but the Rowdy Three would never have wrecked Todd's apartment if Dirk hadn't been there, and he's fairly certain that had been the source of Todd's bad mood.

He knows enough to know that presents are more effective if they are a surprise, so he shops clandestinely, under cover of night, using his phone instead of stealing Todd's computer. This presents difficulties of its own, as Dirk is, at present, mostly sleeping in Todd's bed. It's hard work buying a surprise present when the intended recipient is so... well, present.

"What are you doing?" Todd says, blearily, rolling over and squinting against the light from Dirk's phone.

"Nothing," Dirk says. "Reading. About." He pauses. "Rice cookers."

"Rice cookers?"

"Yes," Dirk says, opening a new tab on his phone and searching for rice cookers, because actually they could use one. "We should buy a rice cooker. You always let it stick to the pot."

" _We_?" Todd says, sounding utterly bewildered.

"Well, yes," Dirk says, warming to the idea. "It makes sense to go halves, don't you think? We'll both be using it. Also, you should really have an electric kettle, we're not barbarians."

Todd buries his face in the pillow.

"I'm not buying an electric kettle," he says, or at least Dirk _thinks_ that's what he says. The pillow makes it hard to hear.

"Why not?"

"Because," Todd says, turning his head towards him, "You're the only person I know who drinks tea, and I already have a coffeemaker."

"Your premise is fallacious," Dirk informs him, searching for electric kettles.

"Oh, no," Todd says, his tone as dry as the terrible mushroom risotto he'd made earlier.

"You are assuming that an electric kettle would only be a worthwhile purchase if you had a wide range of tea drinking acquaintances, rather than one friend who is _extremely_ fond of tea, and spends a lot of time in your apartment. I'm sure you don't need me to draw you a graph illustrating your fundamental and basic wrongness on this subject."

"You could go and make tea in your own apartment," Todd suggests.

"I _could_ ," Dirk says, "but then who would stop you burning the rice?"

"Nnnnngh," Todd says, into the pillow.

"I'm intuiting that the universe wants you to buy an electric kettle," Dirk tries.

" _Dirk_ –"

"I'm having a psychic vision of the future, Todd! We are eating delicious rice, and making tea in a convenient and hassle-free manner."

Todd kicks him in the shins.

Dirk lets him stew in silence for a while and says, "These are really very reasonably priced."

"Do you really think we're at the buying appliances together stage?" Todd asks, probably, distressingly, not even joking.

"Honestly, Todd, they're kitchen appliances, not babies. If we stop being friends, you can buy me out. Or, more realistically, I can buy _you_ out and you can keep them, since if we weren't friends anymore I'd probably be back in England, or dead."

"How would you buy me out of our shared kitchen appliances if you were dead?"

"I'll put an addendum in my will."

Todd snorts, and finally starts laughing.

"Is that it?" Dirk asks, pleased. "Did I win?"

"Go to sleep, Dirk."

Dirk twists around to place his phone on the floor beside the bed, and then twists back to face Todd.

"I once solved a case in which a woman murdered her brother using an electric kettle," he says, confidentially. "But don't tell anyone I told you that. It's confidential."

"Was the kettle in the CIA?"

"Don't be facetious, Todd. The kettle was incidental. The real crux of the matter was the brother's girlfriend's mobile phone, which was possessed by the spirit of–"

" _Dirk_. Go. To. Sleep. Please."

"Alright," Dirk says. "I'll tell you the rest tomorrow."

He listens carefully as Todd's breathing evens out, feeling warm and drowsy and still vaguely worried in a way he can't seem to shake. He's dimly aware, through several layers of almost airtight denial, that this feeling decreases to almost tolerable levels in direct correlation to his proximity to Todd, and that this might, one day, present a problem. Perhaps it already has.

"Todd," he says, into the hush.

"Whaaat," Todd says, his eyes still closed.

"Do you really want me to go and make tea in my own apartment?"

Todd doesn't answer immediately, and Dirk feels his heart sink in rather a melodramatic manner. He'd spent the first, prickly week of their acquaintance convinced of their future friendship based on the words of his future self, which he thinks was a pretty solid basis for optimism. However, he has now passed that point in his own timeline, and has no assurance of anything, up to and including Todd's inclination to remain friends with someone who has lied to him, forced him to go on the run from the CIA, and keeps trying to persuade him to buy kettles. He waits in polite agony for Todd's response.

"No," Todd says, finally. "It's too late for that. I mean. For tea. It's too late to make tea right now."

He reaches out and places his hand on Dirk's arm, just above his wrist.

"Go back to sleep," he says, and Dirk does.

*

Dirk wakes him up at eight-thirty on Thursday morning to go appliance shopping, which Todd really should have seen coming. He's wearing his yellow jacket and spends the whole drive to the mall talking dramatically about haunted cellphones and dead horses. Todd is pretty sure those were two different cases, but since everything is connected anyway, he doesn't bother to ask for clarification. He's aware that he's lowkey freaking out over the idea of co-owning a rice cooker and a kettle, which–how much do kettles even _cost_? Like, thirty bucks? This is, maybe, the stupidest thing he's ever not-quite-freaked-out about. He keeps a lid on it all the way to the store, nodding and raising his eyebrows at all the appropriate places in Dirk's deranged monologue, and then walks in, gets one look at the seventeen different types of casserole dish, and balks.

"No," he says, grabbing Dirk's jacket and yanking him backwards. "Nope."

"Hey!" Dirk says, arms windmilling dramatically as Todd pulls him away. "We had an agreement!"

"If we're going to go in there and debate the merits of rice cookers like we're normal people who have normal jobs and some sort of collective sense of self-preservation, then I'm going to need coffee first."

"Oh." Dirk considers this. "Yes, alright."

They go to Starbucks, because apparently they're having that kind of day, and end up sitting at a table next to a woman with two young kids, who probably don't need to hear about dead horses at nine o'clock on a Thursday morning. Dirk orders a black coffee, which is surprising, and a chocolate fudge brownie, which is not.

"That is not a balanced breakfast," Todd informs him.

"Neither is a cup of coffee," Dirk says, ignoring his fork and eating his brownie with his hands. The kids at the next table look on enviously.

Todd shrugs and sips his coffee. He's already feeling less homicidal. He takes a Sharpie from his pocket and draws a picture of a horse on a napkin, hiding it under the table so that Dirk can't see.

Dirk rolls his eyes, and Todd slaps the napkin, horse side down, on to the table.

"No," Dirk says.

"Come on," Todd wheedles. "What's on it?"

"Is it a picture of a terrible friend?"

"Nope. Try again."

Dirk sighs. "It's a horse."

"No way!" Todd grabs the napkin and balls it up, throwing it at Dirk's head. "I lowballed you that one, you've been talking about horses for the last hour."

Dirk grins at him.

"You have chocolate in your teeth," Todd says, starting on a fresh napkin.

"Okay, round two," he says, positioning the napkin carefully on the table.

"I don't _know_ ," Dirk says, "because I am _not psychic_."

"You must have a hunch," Todd says.

"A..." Dirk raises his eyes and hands to the ceiling, screwing his forehead up in thought, "...flamingo."

"Ha!" Todd says, turning over the napkin. "It was an electric ghost rhino!"

The woman at the next table gives him a weird look.

"I graciously admit defeat," Dirk says, wiping his chocolate-covered hands on Todd's rhino drawing. "Now let's go shopping, before all the good rice cookers are gone."

"Sorry," Todd says to the entire café, and follows Dirk out.

When they get to the store Dirk picks out a fancy looking chrome kettle and puts it in the cart, informing Todd that he, as an American, does not get to weigh in on kettle purchasing. Todd is beyond fine with this.

The rice cookers turn out to be both numerous and very expensive. Todd stares at them in something very close to panic. All of the items currently in Todd's kitchen were either purchased in Wal Mart or stolen from former housemates. He's never been the kind of guy who woke up and thought, "Today I need to make an investment in my culinary future". The only thing he's ever purchased in bulk is Kraft Mac & Cheese.

"I like this one," Dirk is saying. "It's a very fetching colour."

"I don't think you're supposed to choose them based on colour," Todd says, not because he wants to prolong this experience, but because he feels like someone should say that out loud.

"Well, one of us has to have a sense of style," Dirk says, and Todd feels the last shreds of his composure dissolve.

"A _sense of_ –Dirk, you're wearing a yellow jacket, purple jeans and a tie with tiny storks on it. You look like a Wes Anderson movie threw up on you."

"They're _flamingos_ ," Dirk says, sounding highly offended.

"Well, consider my point completely undermined."

"Fine," Dirk says, "why don't we ask if they have any plaid rice cookers?"

"That's hilarious," Todd says. "Why can't we just cook rice in a normal pot that costs seven bucks, like normal people–"

"Oh, I see, this is where you draw the line on normalcy," Dirk says, rolling his eyes. "Electrical ghost rhinos are all well and good, but this moderately priced rice cooker is the hill you die on."

"Oh God, just pick one already," Todd says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'll pay for half. I'll pay for _two_ –"

"Can I help you gentlemen?"

Todd starts violently and very nearly leaps directly onto the sales assistant's foot. She looks affronted.

"Sorry!" he says, backing away. "Sorry. We were just..."

"I apologise for him," Dirk says, rolling his eyes at her conspiratorially. "He's not a very good shopper."

Todd glares at him.

"He has lots of good qualities, though," Dirk says, dropping a consoling hand on Todd's shoulder. "Mazes, he's quite good in mazes."

"I see," the sales assistant says, clearly lying. "So, you guys are moving in together, huh? It can be tricky, the merging of two kitchens. Gotta keep everyone happy."

"Absolutely," Dirk says attentively, while Todd gapes like a fish. "The thing is–" he pauses and looks at her name tag, "– _Becky_ , we just want something middle of the range, really. We're neither of us master chefs, you understand."

"Oh, that's no problem," Becky says. "I recommend this one right here. It's one of our most popular models, and it's very reasonably priced."

"Very reasonably priced," Dirk agrees. "And a very fetching colour."

"Oh, great colour," Becky says, brightly.

Todd closes his eyes and makes an adult decision to open them again when they reach the parking lot.

He lets Dirk load the bags into the trunk himself, watching with his arms folded. He feels a little more relaxed with every aggrieved glance Dirk shoots at him, struggling dramatically with the rice cooker, the kettle, and a new broom he'd insisted on getting because Todd doesn't _technically_ own one.

Dirk slams the trunk shut and comes to stand in front of him, shaking his arms out like he's lost the feeling in them.

"Thank you, Todd," he says, stretching and cracking his shoulders, "as ever, for your invaluable assistance."

Todd grins and put his hand on Dirk's shoulder. "Any time," he says sincerely.

"Todd! Todd Brotzman!" someone calls from behind him.

Todd pulls his hand back from Dirk's shoulder maybe slightly more quickly than he needs to, taking a step back–when did he move so _close_? He registers the hurt look on Dirk's face for just a moment before Dirk does his best to cover it with nonchalance, and for the six hundredth time that year, he feels like a total jerk. He coughs and turns to the source of the voice and sees Mike Kelly, from the room next door in his old college dorms, jogging towards them. He has the same sandy hair and is wearing what may be the exact same Nine Inch Nails shirt Todd spilled beer on in 2003.

"Hey, Mike," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets as Mike reaches them. "How's–how's it going?"

"Good, man, good!" Mike says, beaming, and Jesus, Todd forgot that there was anyone left from college who'd be happy to see him, but Mike had never really known him that well.

"How've you been?" Mike asks. "Still in the band?"

"Uh, no," Todd says, "No, not lately."

He's very aware of Dirk standing quietly just behind his right shoulder, not speaking, not moving, not reaching into his jacket for a business card to give to this new person–he'd given one to the cashier, and three to Becky–just standing.

"This is Dirk," Todd says, stepping back a pace so he's shoulder to shoulder with Dirk. "Dirk Gently, Mike Kelly. We went to college together."

"Hi," Mike says.

"Hello," Dirk says, and then says nothing else. At all. Todd feels sweat prickling on the back of his neck. He has to fix this.

He puts his hand awkwardly on Dirk's shoulder and says, "Dirk is my. Very good friend." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dirk very slowly turn his head and raise his eyebrows at him. Crap.

"We have to go home now," Todd continues, not looking at Dirk. "To, uh. To make lunch."

 _Crap_.

"Okay," Mike says, looking uncertainly between them. "Well, good to see you, man. Take it easy."

"Lovely to make your acquaintance," Dirk says sweetly, and Todd dies a little.

They stand in silence for a moment, watching Mike walk towards the mall. Todd doesn't move his hand from Dirk's shoulder.

"He seems nice," Dirk says, eventually, and he doesn't sound mad, or upset, so Todd lets out a breath and turns to look at him. Dirk is smiling, so he smiles back.

"Come on," Dirk says. "Let's go home and put the kettle on." 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I lied," Dirk says, cheerfully. "I've been informed it's acceptable to lie to your friends when it's about presents or surprise parties."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With each chapter this thing gets fluffier. It's a runaway fluff train. It's a rampaging sap monster. It's a candyfloss meteor headed straight for Earth. I apologise for nothing.
> 
> Few notes on this one:
> 
> \- There are some extremely brief mentions of Todd's pararibulitis attacks in this chapter, but no detailed description because I don't feel I could do it justice in this fluffball of a story, and even if it's a made-up condition I don't really want to half-ass a description of a painful sensory hallucination. I have therefore placed it Outside the Scope of this story without ignoring its existence, but I'm going to warn for it anyway just in case.
> 
> \- I'm aware that it would probably take longer than a few weeks to get a custom Fender Strat, but: a) It's just custom painted, not custom built; b) Dirk seems to be mysteriously very financially solvent; c) The universe did it, okay?
> 
> \- After a fruitless effort to work out when the heck season 1 is actually set, I decided it takes place during the first week in August, as per Patrick Spring's death date on the Bad News Calendar Machine. Which means this fic picks up a few weeks after season 1 ends, and this chapter takes place almost two months after the finale. I'm ignoring the fact that Todd's lottery ticket says the 25th of January because my brain hurts. For the purposes of this fic, it's autumn.

As October 5th draws near, Dirk doesn't mention the birthday party thing again, and Todd is grateful. He's pretty sure Amanda wouldn't come, he's never been one of those people who can comfortably socialise with their parents, and Farah, as far as he knows, is still visiting Lydia in South America. The only other person he would even want to ask, or if he's honest, the first person he would ask, practically lives in his apartment anyway.

They haven't brought up the bed sharing thing, and it's coming up on a month now of Dirk's pointy elbows jabbing him in the night, Dirk's quiet snuffling next to him when he wakes up, heart pounding, from an indistinct nightmare, and occasionally Dirk's arm slung around his waist when he wakes in the morning. Todd has had two pararibulitis attacks in the last month, and they're probably going to get more frequent, but Dirk hasn't shied away in the slightest. He's been pretty great, actually, getting Todd his meds, and occasionally making him tea or rubbing his back in a very comforting way when he's shaking afterwards. It's all very...

Weird. It's definitely weird.

He considers bringing it up more than once, just to go on record as being _aware_ of the high levels of weirdness, but that conversation can only end one of two ways. Either Dirk stops spending the night and goes back to sleeping downstairs in his own apartment, or they acknowledge, out loud, that they're making a conscious decision to share a bed, which leads to a whole other subset of questions and dilemmas. Either prospect fills him with terror, so he does what he's best at: he pushes the thought to the back of his mind, acts like everything is fine, and pretends he's not developing an ulcer.

Except. This policy has never worked very well with Dirk, who despite his airy-fairy flow of the universe schtick, has a history of ruthlessly and accurately calling Todd on his bullshit. Todd, a seasoned liar and professional asshole, is singularly, embarrassingly bad at lying to Dirk. He hadn't made a conscious decision to tell Dirk that he'd faked the pararibulitis–it had just sort of come out. He'd been lying about it for almost a decade and had never told a single soul, and suddenly he was spilling his guts to a guy he had known for five days who was covered in pink band-aids. That kind of honesty is dangerous.

No matter how much he tries to avoid saying things to Dirk, he inevitably ends up saying them anyway. It's kind of terrifying.

"What are you making?" Dirk asks from behind him, and Todd jumps.

"Risotto," he says, recovering and continuing to chop mushrooms.

"Mmmm," Dirk says, crowding up behind him and peering over his shoulder. "Your risotto has greatly improved since I forced you to buy a rice cooker."

Todd rolls his eyes. "So you're taking credit for my cooking now?"

"Only partial credit," Dirk says, and Todd doesn't have to look behind him to know Dirk is smiling smugly.

"Well," he says, "Because I'm the bigger man, I won't try to take any credit whatsoever for yours."

"You liked my tomato soup," Dirk says, pronouncing it _tomahto_ , and Todd shrugs.

"It was pretty good the second time around," he says, "when you didn't burn it."

"I never make the same mistake twice," Dirk says. "Except getting kidnapped by the CIA."

Todd snorts.

"Try not to repeat that one," he says. "I don't know how I'd break you out with Farah out of the country."

Dirk waves a hand dismissively.

"Oh, I'm sure you'd do fine on your own," he says. "You're very resourceful."

This is shameless flattery if Todd's ever heard it, so he says nothing and keeps chopping, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"In point of fact," Dirk says after approximately 3.5 seconds of silence, "I know that I can always rely on you as a steadfast companion, whether it's for digging up disassembled time machines, or, entirely hypothetically, picking up some cold medicine whenever you next happen to be out, because I can't leave the flat until my face stops trying to slide off."

Todd looks at him skeptically.

"You don't look sick," he says.

"That's what they said to Spike Milligan."

"I don't know who that is."

Dirk huffs. "Oh, I see. So it's only weird when _I_ don't get _your_ references."

Todd puts the knife down, wipes his hands on his jeans, and peers into Dirk's eyes, placing the back of his hand on his forehead.

"You don't have a temperature," he says doubtfully.

"I feel _terrible_ ," Dirk says. "My head's all..." he twirls his hands around the vicinity of his head, "cloudy."

"Well," Todd says, trying hard not to roll his eyes, "I think I have some cold medicine in the bathroom–"

"You don't. I checked."

They stand, locked in stalemate, for an undetermined length of time during which Todd attempts to not give in to Dirk's ridiculous puppy eyes, and then Dirk sniffs pathetically and rubs his nose and Todd says " _Fine_ ," and gets his coat.

Nope, nothing weird about this relationship, he thinks, setting off down the street. Nothing at all.

 

When he gets back to the apartment fifteen minutes later, he tries to open his door and walks heavily into it.

"Ow," he says, rubbing his arm, and then registers what just happened. His door is locked. He actually double checks he's at the right apartment before he slowly raises his hand and knocks.

The door is flung open almost immediately, and he comes face to face with a beaming Amanda.

"Surprise, dickhead!" she yells, and launches herself at him in a violent hug. He hugs back, stunned.

"Amanda? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?"

She steps back, rolling her eyes.

"Everything's fine, Todd. Don't be so dramatic."

"But...why are you here?"

"Dirk invited us for your birthday!" She correctly interprets the look of shitless terror on his face and adds, "Don't worry, I left the guys in the van. I think they went to trash a high school or something. Farah and me got you a new lock for your door. Do you like it?"

She gestures at the door, which Todd belatedly notices has a red ribbon on the inside of it. He laughs, still reeling a little. Amanda is _here_. And she _hugged_ him. Because of _Dirk_. His brain skips over these facts like a broken record for a few seconds, and he can't think of a single thing to say.

"How did you do this in fifteen minutes?" he manages, and Amanda grins wider.

"Dirk knows a guy," she says, like this explains everything. Maybe it does. Dirk pisses off ninety percent of people, but he seems to effortlessly charm the pants off of the other ten.

"Todd!" Dirk pops up behind Amanda, grinning even more maniacally than usual. "You're back! Excellent. You're just in time to open my present."

"Would that involve someone inviting me in to my own apartment at some point?" Todd asks. "I can't believe you faked a cold to send me to the store. You asshole. I thought you were sick!"

Truthfully, he'd thought Dirk was being over dramatic, but it had honestly never occurred to him that he'd been lying.

"I lied," Dirk says, cheerfully. "I've been informed it's acceptable to lie to your friends when it's about presents or surprise parties."

He looks to Amanda for support.

"It's true," she says, innocently. "Would I lie to you guys?"

"Oh, shit," Dirk says, looking suddenly kind of panicked. "Did you lie? It's acceptable, right?"

"Yes," Todd says, feeling weirdly touched and also kind of pissed off and mostly pretty bemused. "It's acceptable. But only in this very specific situation. Or when Amanda puts a pink streak in her hair and asks you if she looks like Avril Lavigne. As a for instance."

Amanda glares at him.

"Seriously," he says, "can I come in now?"

"Hi, Todd," Farah says, wandering up from the direction of the kitchen to stand on Amanda's other side. "Happy birthday."

"Hi Farah," he says. "It's me, Todd. I live in the hallway now."

"Oh, do calm down," Dirk says, invoking about seven different types of irony apparently unintentionally. "You can come inside in a moment. We just want to present your presents correctly."

He holds up one of his own godawful ties and moves toward Todd's face.

"No," Todd says, taking a step back. "Absolutely not."

"It's either the tie blindfold or I put my hands over your eyes," Dirk says, sounding weirdly determined. "There's a right and a wrong way to do these things, Todd."

God, he _researched_ this, didn't he?

"You can put your hands over my eyes," Todd says. "Just don't...tie anything around my head. You'll probably slip and accidentally strangle me."

"That seems highly unlikely," Dirk says, but he hands the tie to Amanda and moves to stand behind Todd. "Okay, here we go!"

He puts his hands over Todd's eyes and nudges him forwards. Todd stumbles inside, weirdly worried about whether his face feels sweaty.

"Now," Dirk says, "let's count to three!"

"Dirk, just show him," Amanda says, and Todd stumbles again as she presumably shoves Dirk from behind.

"Okay, okay," Dirk says. He whips his hands away from Todd's face and yells, "Ta-da!"

Todd stares. On the bed in front of him is a badly wrapped, brightly coloured lump. A guitar shaped lump.

"Dirk," he says, and then stops, his throat closing embarrassingly. He swallows, hard. The giftwrap is yellow, and has tiny blue whales on it.

"Well," Dirk says, "aren't you going to open it?"

Todd laughs, feeling slightly hysterical. "Don't you want me to try and guess what it is?"

"Very funny," Dirk says. "You'll find I still have a couple of surprises up my sleeve."

"Open it, open it!" Amanda says, jumping from foot to foot like a kid who's had too many pixie sticks. Farah smiles slightly, which is probably what she looks like on a candy high.

Todd carefully tears off the paper, revealing– _holy shit_ –a brand new Fender Strat. It's black and white, and custom painted with...

"Is that...an electric ghost rhino?" he asks. He's still trying to figure out whether to laugh or cry.

"Yep!" Dirk says, bouncing enthusiastically. "I got the impression that was far from the weirdest request they'd ever had. I had to be pretty specific. It's just the right shade of blue, don't you think?"

Todd blinks. And blinks again. He's aware he's still staring at the guitar like he's never seen one before, but he can't seem to stop.

"Todd?" Dirk sounds slightly anxious now. "Do you like it?"

"You ordered this before that day in the mall, didn't you?"

"The night before," Dirk admits.

Todd turns to raise his eyebrows at him.

"I didn't _know_ you were going to draw it on a napkin," Dirk says, defensively. "I just thought you might like it."

"Right," Todd says, "natural assumption, that I would have fond memories of the freaky supernatural phenomenon that almost fried us alive."

"So, you _don't_ like it," Dirk says, sounding utterly dejected.

Todd sighs and internally throws his hands up, because what's one more piece of dangerous honesty in this relationship, really?

"I love it," he says. "It's perfect."

He looks back at Dirk and finds him beaming at Todd like he'd just bought _Dirk_ the best gift ever.

" _God_ ," he says, and before he can overthink it, flings his arms around Dirk's neck.

"You are psychic," he says, muffled by Dirk's shirt collar. Why is this guy so _tall_ , honestly?

"Shut up," Dirk says, hugging the life out of him. Todd laughs again, and doesn't cry, because that would be weird. Weirder than carefully unacknowleged maybe-semi-platonic bed sharing with a guy he's known for six weeks. Weirder than freaking out over rice cookers. Maybe not weirder than electric ghost rhinos. It's possible his internal weirdness scale is totally fucked. It's possible he doesn't care.

"Thank you," he says, not letting go. "Thanks, Dirk."

Amanda clears her throat delicately. Todd doesn't move for a second, then he slowly steps back. He only looks at Dirk's face for a second, but it's enough to note that his cheeks are pink, his eyes are shiny, and he's smiling tremulously. Dirk is so bad at playing it cool it's _painful_ , and right now Todd loves him for it. He lets himself smile.

*

Dirk hasn't been to a birthday party since he was six, and so far this is a vast improvement on the last one. They'd given up on Todd's half made risotto and ordered pizza, paired with some beer of dubious provenance brought by Amanda, and surprisingly gooey and delicious cake brought by Farah. He feels pleasantly gluttonous and lazy, and is sprawled on the sofa beside Farah, half-listening to Amanda's disturbing anecdotes about the Rowdy Three. He counts it among his great party-planning successes that those loutish vampires aren't in attendance, but he doesn't say that out loud.

In fact, it's all gone off pretty perfectly, if he does say so himself. He's pretty certain he actually managed to surprise Todd, which had been equally surprising to _him_. He'd assumed Todd had cottoned on ages ago and was just humouring him, but his face when he saw Amanda, and when he opened the guitar, had suggested otherwise. It's nice to see Farah and Amanda too, he realises. He's been living in rather a Todd-centric bubble lately, shying away from bright lights, loud noises, and other humans, and he thinks maybe he's ready to venture into the world a little again. He hasn't had a case in _weeks_.

He doesn't fault himself for staying off the grid for a while. They'd both needed it, and obviously the universe agreed with him or he would have acquired a new case whether he wanted one or not. Probably in a bizarre and violent manner. Maybe Todd will come with him on the next case. Probably. Most likely. He'd certainly expressed an interest before all that dreadful stuff with Friedkin.

Todd, he notes, is making a very odd face right now. He tunes back into the conversation.

"...and then," Amanda is saying, "Gripps just threw the guy's TV in the pool."

Farah laughs, looking more relaxed than Dirk has ever seen her, even before her boss had been murdered. Todd, sitting next to Amanda on the bed, looks stuck somewhere between amused and horrified.

"Amanda," he says, "you're gonna get arrested!"

"Dude," she says, flinging her arms wide and slopping beer over her hand and Todd's right shoulder, "we infiltrated the CIA. This is the stuff you're worrying about?"

"I worry about that, too," Todd says. "Retroactively."

He moves his guitar pointedly out of the way of Amanda's drink.

"He worries about a lot of things," Dirk confides to Farah. "Kitchen appliances turn him into a gibbering mess, it's really quite bizarre."

"Shut up, Dirk," Todd says, kicking at him fruitlessly from the bed.

"So close," Dirk says, "and yet so far. Do you want me to come over there so you can beat me up properly?"

"Nah," Todd says. "If the universe wanted me to kick you, it would have put my bed closer to the couch."

"Wow. You two _have_ been spending a lot of time together," Farah says.

"I try my best to impart knowledge and wisdom," Dirk says, "but I so rarely see the fruits of my labour."

Todd turns to Amanda and says, "The other day he broke the toaster by putting a burrito in it."

"Slander!" Dirk says, pointing in Todd's general direction. "Where is the proof for these wild accusations? Do you have any evidence of this alleged burrito?"

"I have one less toaster than I did last week."

"I'll get a new one," Dirk says, taking another drink of appalling, lukewarm American beer. "What is it with you and kitchen appliances, Todd, honestly?"

"Did you guys, like, get married in the last month and not tell anyone," Amanda asks, looking between them in bemusement.

"Well," Dirk says, "someone has to keep your brother in guitars and toasters."

Todd gets up, kicks him, and sits back down.

 

Todd spends the whole evening messing around with his new guitar, which fills Dirk with pride. He doesn't really play anything on it, just strums and picks aimlessly, punctuating the conversation with fragments of unidentifiable melodies. Well, maybe not unidentifiable to someone who knows anything about music. Which, as Todd is constantly reminding him, Dirk does not.

"What's this one?" he asks, listening to something slow and mellow Todd is playing. Dirk's sitting on the sofa, Todd is on the bed, and Amanda and Farah are talking softly in the kitchen. The music stops abruptly, and Dirk lifts up his head from where it was lolling on the back of the sofa to look over at the bed. Todd is looking at him, eyebrows raised.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," Dirk confirms.

"It's the _Beatles_ ," Todd says, and he sounds exasperated, but he's still smiling. "Aren't you British?"

"Oh," Dirk says, letting his head flop back down. "I suppose that's why it sounds familiar. My mum used to listen to the Beatles."

There's silence for a moment, and then he hears the bedsprings creak as Todd stands up, and comes to sit next to him on the sofa, sans guitar.

"You don't talk about your parents," he says, which is perfectly true.

"No," Dirk says, slowly. Todd leans against him slightly.

"Maybe..." Dirk pauses, searching for the right words, desperate not to ruin this day, this completely unremarkable day that is possibly the best of his life so far. "Maybe I will. Sometime."

"Okay," Todd says. "Do you want more cake?"

Dirk smiles and closes his eyes.

"Not right now," he says.

"Hey," he hears from somewhere above him, and opens his eyes to find Amanda looming over him from behind, squinting at him upside down. They had fallen asleep, he realises, as Todd yawns and rubs his eyes beside him.

"Hi," he says to upside-down Amanda.

"Me and Farah are pretty beat," Amanda says. "We're going to get a cab back to her place."

"You should just sleep downstairs," Todd says, stretching and turning to look at her. Dirk sits up straight and stares at him.

"What?" Amanda asks, after a second.

"In Dirk's place," Todd clarifies.

"And where will _Dirk_ sleep?" Amanda asks, as if she's speaking to a particularly strange and confused child. Dirk knows that tone well.

"Dirk mostly sleeps here with me now," Todd says, matter-of-factly, and Dirk stares at him some more, his heart pounding in his ears. There's a deafening silence. Todd looks back at him and gives him a classic Todd _why are you being so weird_ face, which Dirk thinks is a little bit unfair.

"Oh," Amanda says. Dirk chances a look at her, and finds she looks surprised, but not displeased. He's almost entirely sure he has no idea what is happening right now.

"Okay," Amanda says, looking towards the kitchen. Dirk twists to look and sees Farah leaning against the partition, arms folded, eyebrows raised. Silence falls again. Todd looks completely unconcerned.

"Dirk," Farah says, "do you need to get any of your stuff from your apartment first?"

"Er," Dirk says. "No. Most of my things are here."

"Okaaay," Amanda says again, drawn out and _maybe_ amused. "Well, then. Goodnight."

"Night," Todd says, lurching to his feet and going to sit on the bed to take his socks off.

Dirk continues to stare at him as Farah and Amanda leave, closing the newly repaired door after them with a satisfying click. He's sleepy and confused and he doesn't think he could take his eyes off Todd right now if his life depended on it.

"I'm gonna brush my teeth," Todd says, and smiles at him briefly before he heads to the bathroom. Dirk stares at the rumpled bedcovers for a while before he shakes himself, and gets up to change into his pyjamas.

He sits on the edge of the bed and listens to Todd gargle mouthwash as he waits for his turn to brush his teeth. He double checks Todd's medication is in the nightstand within easy reach even though he hasn't had an attack for two weeks now. He looks around the room at the party debris: beer bottles and pizza boxes and plates smeared with cake crumbs. He looks at Todd's new guitar leaning against the wall.

Todd comes back into the room and smiles at him. Again. Todd's giving out smiles tonight like they're going out of fashion.

He brushes his teeth in a daze, uses the toilet, and spends a while staring at his Mexican Funeral t-shirt in the mirror in complete and total confusion before he heads back out, and climbs under the covers on his side. It's warm and dark, and as soon as he gets settled comfortably, he feels Todd's hand come to rest on his arm.

"Thanks for today," Todd says.

Dirk exhales shakily. This is the easily the best birthday he's ever had, and it's not even his. He thinks he wants to smile, but his face is too confused. Possibly that thought makes no sense. Possibly it doesn't matter in the slightest.

He says, "No problem."

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the [beautiful art](http://dont-offend-the-bees.tumblr.com/post/168567475090/god-he-says-and-before-he-can-overthink-it) by dont-offend-the-bees! <3


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